


Lessons in Value and Security

by prairiecrow



Series: Lessons in Humanity [18]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: A.I. to Human, Established Relationship, Human Jarvis (Iron Man movies), M/M, Same-Sex Marriage, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the morning after, Steve Rogers takes a moment to reflect — and to savour all that he's accomplished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Value and Security

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains spoilers for the outcome of "Lessons in Manoeuvrability and Marriage".

Steve woke up slowly on the morning after, filled with a profound sense of inarticulate contentment, a happiness that thrilled quietly through him from balls to bones even before conscious thought fully kicked in. When words finally came to mind, they expressed ineffable awe: _Was it a dream? Could it possibly be real?_  

He was spooned up against Tony's naked back under an expensive linen sheet, his left arm draped over both the smaller man and the slender nude blond snuggled up against Tony's chest with his fine-boned head tucked under Tony's goateed chin. Jarvis's left hand was loosely curled in the tousled short hair at the base of Tony's skull, and in the dimness of the bedroom's restful shadows it sported a twin faint gleam of red and white that made Steve's heart quicken in his breast. 

Happiness indeed, as he pressed the lightest kiss to those slim fingers before slipping out of bed with due care not to wake them — his lovers, and now so much more. Clad only in pajama bottoms, he made himself a pot of coffee in their neat kitchen, ate a whole wheat bagel with chive cream cheese (the cheddar cheese and onion bagels were Tony's, and Jarvis preferred toasted English muffins in the morning), and savoured the warmth of memory and anticipation washing over him again and again as he sat at the dining table watching the sun rise over New York City. Everything was new and bright and splendid, because of that quiet glint of light on precious metal in the bedroom he'd left and on the hand cradling his coffee cup; the most mundane details were miraculous, because now they were _his_ , forever. 

He still couldn't quite believe it. Did everybody feel this way, on the morning after their wedding? 

Probably not, because nobody else had pledged themselves in a secret ceremony to both the dynamo that was Tony Stark and the wonder that was his Jarvis — _their_ Jarvis, now, sealed in word and deed. The certainty and the joy that had shone in those pale blue eyes would remain with Steve forever, as would the wry quirk of Tony's full lips that suggested he couldn't quite believe he was actually standing _there_ saying _those things_ to anybody, even in the privacy of his own penthouse… but he had, and his sturdy graceful hands hadn't wavered in either the giving or the receiving of the rings Steve had provided for them all. 

Steve remembered the oaths they'd spoken, and smiled again with silent wonder as he gazed at the skyline of the most glorious city in the world — because that magnificent metropolis now held the world's greatest treasure, an unparalleled story of hope and love, even if it didn't know it and would never be granted the privilege of understanding its truths. 

Some things were simply too precious, too sacred, and too dangerous to be shared with those who would only seek to trample them into the dust. Tony hadn't quite put it in those terms, but that was what he'd meant — and Steve, on this radiant new day, found himself for once in perfect agreement.

He could afford to be generous. He'd set out to win the most elusive man in the world and the being who loved that man more than life itself — and he'd secured them both, a victory that made all his other achievements pale by comparison. Even if nobody else on Earth would ever know what the rings on their fingers meant, that was a triumph that Steve would cherish until the day he died, and beyond. 

He refilled his coffee cup and padded back into the bedroom to settle his hip on the edge of the mattress and simply gaze. Tony had rolled onto his back, with Jarvis draped half over his chest; his left hand was loosely clasped around the fairer and slighter forearm of their sub where that arm crossed his sturdy waist, shamelessly displaying twinned glints of white and yellow gold. Steve glanced again at his own left hand — red gold and yellow encircling the finger whose veins supposedly led straight to the heart — and felt a nearly overpowering urge to run up to the very peak of Stark Tower and shout it to the whole world: _They're mine, and no power in Heaven or on Earth can take them away from me!_  

In the back of his mind a little voice whispered that he shouldn't provoke God that brazenly… but damned if this morning, with the circle of the sun rising beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows like an emblem of his own personal triumph, he didn't feel like he could take on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost Themselves, if They dared try to deprive him of the husbands of his heart. 

He gazed, his coffee growing cold, until Tony stirred and frowned and his dear dark eyes flickered open, finding Steve's face at once before shifting to Steve's left hand — and there was that sardonic smirk again, a darling quirk of his expressive mouth.  

"Not a dream, then," he muttered, and rubbed his face with the same hand before holding it out to admire his own set of rings. 

"Not a dream," Steve confirmed, sweet emotion swelling in his throat, and as Jarvis stretched and yawned and came half-awake with a beautiful drowsy smile Steve knew that for the first time in nearly seventy years — indeed, for the first time in his adult life — he was truly and joyously _home_. 

THE END


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